Progress and development are usually associated with a higher standard or quality of living and generally a more convenient lifestyle. However, apart from the effects that digital technology has had on human populations, in terms of mental health, social dynamics, and even political and economic issues, new technologies in general might be accelerating too much for us to handle.

But let's go back to basics for now. The most fundamental means by which humans have survived and sustained themselves without the use of technology was through hunter-gathering. We looked for food available naturally in the wild. We foraged, hunted, and fished. Then agriculture was developed and most of us never looked back.

Now, it seems that agriculture jump-started much of our technological innovation. However, researchers are suggesting that perhaps, the hunter-gathering lifestyle might have been a lot easier than farming.

A paper published in Nature Human Behaviour explores how this shift affects the time budgets of hunter-gatherers in the Philippines, finding that women who participate more in agricultural work have less leisure time—around half the leisure time of women who prioritize foraging. 

The results fall in line with past research that challenges the concept of hunting and foraging as arduous work with scant rewards, and this work contributes to a growing understanding of the social dynamics that go along with a shift to agriculture.

(Image credit: sasint/Pixabay)

With his sandy masterpiece entitled “Liberty Crumbling”, Damon Langlois bags the first prize of the 2019 Texas Sandfest, the largest native-sand sculpture competition in the U.S.

See all of the winners from the 23rd Annual Texas Sandfest here.

(Image Credit: Kastle Kelley)

Perhaps the two most defining images of World War II--at least from the American perspective--are Joe Rosenthal's picture of of Marines raising the flag on the island of Iwo Jima and Alfred Eisenstaedt's photo of a sailor and nurse kissing in Times Square upon the news of Japan's surrender.

Redditor S_S_Sioux offers these interpretations of those great moments in stained glass. He's now looking for another image to work into glass. Which great World War II photo do you suggest?

People with red hair have been depicted in many paintings throughout history that it might simply pass us by without asking ourselves why. In reality, redheads have received some discrimination for being the "other" or the "oddities" of life since it's quite rare for people to have red hair.

As such, certain symbolism have been affixed to being a redhead. Even in art, these are subtly, if not explicitly, shown. For example, Botticelli's Venus possesses red hair but for what reason did he give the goddess of beauty, sex, and love those locks?

“This business of being attracted to the color red is very hardwired into us,” Harvey said. Early humans developed the ability to differentiate between reds, greens, and blues as an evolutionary mechanism to help them (among other things) better forage for ripe, brightly colored fruits in overwhelmingly green forests. 

“And that’s even before all of the associations with fire, and warmth, and sun, and blood,” Harvey continued. Red is thus a highly visceral color associated with survival, sex, and strong emotion.

(Image credit: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Wikimedia Commons)

Nothing perhaps could be as complicated yet so simple, so serious yet petty, than matters of the heart. There has not been an event, whether it be far-reaching or minuscule in scope, in which the heart was not involved. Relationships, ambitions, betrayals, and everything in between have caught the attention of our heart in one way or another.

How does the human heart — that ancient beast, whose roars and purrs have inspired sonnets and ballads and wars, defied myriad labels too small to hold its pulses, and laid lovers and empires at its altar — unbusy itself from self-consciousness and learn to be a heart? 

That is what artist and illustrator Corinna Luyken explores in the lyrical and lovely My Heart (public library) — an emotional intelligence primer in the form of an uncommonly tender illustrated poem about the tessellated capacities of the heart, about love as a practice rather than a state, about how it can frustrate us, brighten us, frighten us, and ultimately expand us.

(Image credit: Brain Pickings)

To replace the gig economy workers who are delivering everything from Amazon packages to dinner, we now have bipedal robots traveling in driverless vehicles. Digit is the name of the robot, a real product from Agility Robotics. Digit is astonishingly like a real delivery person in that it walks across the grass, leaves the package on the porch, and doesn't even ring the doorbell. But unlike humans, it does not require wages after the initial investment. Also its knees are backwards. Learn more about the robot in another video.  -via Laughing Squid  

Agatha Christie will always be the queen of whodunits. She published 65 murder mysteries in her lifetime, 30 of which featured poisons. Doctors and scientists were astonished at how accurate Christie's poisonings were, but she came by that honestly. She was a trained nurse and pharmacy assistant, using her skills during both World Wars. Her descriptions of the symptoms of poisoning leaked into the real world, and ended up solving real crimes! One book, The Pale Horse, helped solve at least three different cases of poisoning, one accidental and two which were crimes. Read about those cases, and about the many different poisons in Agatha Christie mysteries, at Ann Marie Ackermann's blog. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Enyavar)

This is not a scam, it's legit. The reason behind this whole thing is, according to the artist (yes, it's an art project), "to create a catalogue of historical threats". In collaboration with Deep Instinct, Chinese internet artist Guo O Dong infected a laptop with six of the deadliest computer viruses in history.

“Malware is one of the most tangible ways that the internet can jump out of your monitor and bite you,” Guo told VICE. “These pieces of software seem so abstract, almost fake with their funny, spooky names, but I think they emphasize that the web and IRL are not different spaces.”

All together, the six pieces of malware — ILOVEYOU, MyDoom, SoBig, WannaCry, DarkTequila, and BlackEnergy — have caused $95 billion dollars in damages worldwide, attacking millions of users and targeting banks, government institutions, and average people.

Rest assured, anybody who will subsequently own this computer does not risk having other computers infected. The collaborators made sure that these viruses will not spread. But it probably would be best to leave the computer alone and not stick anything into it.

(Image credit: Soumil Kumar/Pexels)

Volcanoes are as majestic as they are destructive and as much as hikers enjoy climbing a mountain, they would have the same experience with a volcano, and then some. The thrill of climbing a volcano, especially an active one is electrifying. Taking the risk is what makes it fun.

Adrian Rohnfelder knows this fascination well. A photographer based in Germany, he has a virulent, incurable strain of a disease he calls the “firework virus.” Symptoms include a mix of wanderlust and keen curiosity that compels him to visit the tallest, farthest, most spectacular dormant or active volcanic peaks around the world—sometimes in the hope that he will be there when they spew.

In all his travels, Rohnfelder documented the tallest and perhaps the most fascinating volcanoes in the world, bringing us from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to the frigid heights of Mount Sidley in Antarctica, these are some of the best photos you will ever witness.

(Image credit: NASA/Landsat 8; Wikimedia Commons)

The crow is taunting the cat, and the cat does not appreciate it one bit. I would transcribe the dialogue, but I don't know Russian. -via reddit

Creativity can be used both for the sake of art and practicality, and fish decoys exemplify that feature. These realistic fish were carved to mimic the appearance of their live counterparts, not just to be used as decoration but also to lure fish.

For certain types of fishing, these decoys can be even more effective than live bait: Not only can they be brighter, but they can be tailored to mimic the fish most appetizing to pike. But Osvold and others spend more time carving and painting than strictly necessary. “It becomes fun, and you kinda get addicted,” he says.

Osvold knew that he was far from the only one obsessing over decoys, which have long been sold to people looking for a mantelpiece item rather than a fishing tool. So about 20 years ago, he started the National Fish Decoy Association (NFDA).

The association showcases the decoys created by artists in order for them to gain exposure as well as connect with other enthusiasts of the craft. You may check out their gallery here.

(Image credit: Jacob Sazama/NFDA)

The Cerna River in Romania, and the valley it runs through, is a natural beauty. The area also has a surfeit of hot mineral springs. This led the Romans to use it as a spot for rest and relaxation, and even the legendary Hercules is said to have vacationed there. The town of Băile Herculane grew to be a resort for the entire world, drawing the elite of the Austrian Empire to Romania for healing and renewal. Celebrities from Queen Victoria to Mark Twain visited.

Architectural jewels, bearing the names of emperors of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, gave witness to the last golden age of Europe’s spa culture, when a mystical destination on the Transylvanian border could draw people from faraway kingdoms to try its legendary medicinal waters. Doctors and high profile patients swore by the healing powers of the spas, convinced there was an appropriate mineral-rich spring for every ailment.

Grand hotels, casinos, bars and restaurants began to flourish near the springs, which became integral to genteel life and some of the earliest examples of modern tourist destinations. Whether afflicted by illness or not, the world’s elite flocked to the outreaches of central Europe to socialize, fall in love, find creative inspiration, attend cultural events and sport the latest fashions, all the while, living apart from reality. It charmed Empress Elisabeth of Austria, nicknamed Sisi, who made several visits during the 1880s to try to cure her rheumatism.

But time has not been kind to Băile Herculane. Two world wars, the Iron Curtain, and political upheaval have taken their toll. The beautiful buildings are still there, in genteel disrepair, and you can see them at Messy Nessy Chic.

Lake Geneva, a town on Geneva Lake in Wisconsin, is the home of many houseboat residents. They roam about the lake, but have their mail delivered to individual mailboxes on docks.

The mailboat approaches each dock. At the front is the mailboat jumper jumps off, runs to the mailbox, takes the outgoing mail, puts in the incoming mail, then runs back to the boat and jumps on.

The boat doesn't stop. It doesn't even slow down. The jumper has to be fast and precise if he doesn't want to get left behind.

This video from last year shows young people trying out. The young man at the 0:57 mark has spunk. I like the cut of his jib.

-via Nag on the Lake

If you love the old Mickey Mouse silent cartoons such as Plane Crazy, you really love Ub Iwerks and not Walt Disney. While Disney owned and operated his studio, and sometimes directed the cartoons he produced, he had little artistic talent and that is where Ub Iwerks came in. A talented and prolific artist, he could turn out as many as 700 drawings in one day, about 10x the average output, frequently animating an entire cartoon by himself. He also was a visionary in plots and execution and is largely responsible for Disney's early success.

But in 1930, money and credit for intellectual property came between them and Ub left to form his own studio. He was forced to sell his Disney stock, which, if left intact, would have been worth many billions today. But the cartoons he produced were excellent, as seen in the embed. You'll notice how suspiciously the mouse antagonist resembles another mouse of the time.

Ub's studio produced many color cartoons which were well-received, but the competition was simply too great and he did not have to resources to enjoin his other studio competitors. Eventually, Ub's studio failed and he was forced to return, hat in hand, to Disney, who did rehire him but he was never again in a position of any power. Walt Disney had the upper hand and used it shamefully. At the end, Ub was a broke and broken old man and his last hurrah at Disney was to produce the animated sequences in 1964's Mary Poppins.

Scientists have been searching for the origins of Libyan desert glass and how it formed and survived through all these years. Many studies have been conducted without any definitive proof of how it came to be. 

Some suggested that it formed during meteorite impact while others say it could have been due to a massive object burning through the Earth's atmosphere. Now, there is a study that might be able to confirm one of those hypotheses.

Our research, published in the journal Geology, reports the first evidence of high-pressure damage, showing the glass formed during a meteorite impact. The new “smoking gun” for understanding the origin of the Libyan desert glass is evidence of an unusual mineral called reidite. Reidite only forms during a meteorite impact, when atoms in the mineral zircon are forced into a tighter arrangement.

Reidite is rare and only reported from meteorite impact sites. It is found in material ejected from craters and in shocked rocks at craters. Prior studies have found evidence of former reidite within zircon from impact melt, similar to how it was identified in Libyan desert glass.

Now, this doesn't solve the entire mystery altogether though. If Libyan desert glass was produced in this way, then where is the source crater located and what has happened to it? More research needs to be conducted on the matter. This is just a possible piece of the puzzle.

(Image credit: H. Raab/Wikimedia Commons)